It was my grandmother’s most often used expletive. She only used it in frustration. Like when you’re pouring oil out of a frying pan into a glass jar through a strainer to use later and you spill the oil everywhere; that’s a proper time to say fiddlesticks! There was always a tinge of resignation in her voice when she said it, as if it was declaration of surrender to the task that had just outmaneuvered her.
Inevitably there would be someone standing by who saw the humor in the situation, and they would laugh. Gram would laugh too. No sense in staying upset all day over something silly.
Mom’s favorite wooden cuss-word was “Cat Hair!”
Apparently, people have been using fiddlesticks in this way since the 18th century. Whenever she said it I would imagine someone knocking over a bucket of violin bows. Have you ever priced a violin bow? Or I would visualize a couple of bows crossed above Gram’s head like some musical coat of arms. Or perhaps a barrage of fiddlesticks raining down on her. It is funny what you think as a child.
I had always assumed that a fiddlestick was the bow of the violin, and that is the original definition. But fiddlesticks is also what you call a pair of sticks that a second person plays on the strings of a violin to add percussion to a fiddle tune. It is quite common in Cajun fiddle tunes. But I didn’t grow up listening to Cajun folk music, much less seeing people play it. I was reminded of this word-and Gram- today because I saw someone playing the fiddlesticks in this video.
Mostly From Memory 